The Wolf and the Raven

by H A CULLEY

  ‘Thank you, Bjorn.’ Lagertha smiled at him, acknowledging his support, whilst Ivar scowled at both of them.

  ‘I’m the eldest and so it is natural for me to assume the role of king of all our father’s territories until he is well again,’ Ivar stated.

  ‘Do you think that’s a good idea, Ivar?’ Jarl Guthrum interjected before Ragnar’s other sons could vent their disagreement.

  ‘Why? What do you mean?’

  ‘King Ragnar now rules a vast swathe of Southern Norway and all of Sweden apart from Kvenland in the north, which is sparsely populated, and the land of the Geats. The combined kingdoms are made up of diverse peoples - Gepids, Goths, Heruli, Rugii, Scirii, Vandals, Finns and the Warin – and is governed by nearly seventy jarls. Only his reputation as an outstanding Viking leader enabled him to achieve this. With all due respect, Ivar, you may be his eldest surviving son, but you are only twenty two years old and still have to make a name for yourself.’

  ‘I won the Battle of Uppsala after my father was wounded,’ Ivar pointed out with some spleen.

  ‘No you didn’t, Ivar, we all worked together to win that battle. Most importantly, it was Sigurd’s quick thinking that steadied our men. He had the presence of mind to circulate the false story that father was only slightly wounded,’ Bjorn said calmly.

  Ivar subsided into a sulk, glaring at his brother.

  ‘It doesn’t help if we fall out, Ivar,’ Sigurd put in. ‘Halfdan and I are too young to rule anywhere yet, so you and Bjorn need to agree how to govern father’s old kingdoms and this new one. Whatever you decide, we’ll help you.’

  Ivar thought for a minute or two and, just when the silence was becoming uncomfortable, he nodded, as if having just resolved a conflict within himself.

  ‘We may have captured the capital of Uppsala and killed its king, but we are a long way from having secured the kingdom,’ he began. ‘It will take time and effort to pacify the rest of the country and, as Guthrum pointed out, we may face a threat from the Geats to the south of us and the Kvens to the north. Furthermore we will need to capture the Åland Islands in order to dominate the Gulf of Bothnia.’

  ‘That’s all true, but meanwhile we have been absent from our homeland in Norway and Western Sweden for too long,’ Bjorn pointed out.

  ‘I’m coming to that. My proposal is that I return to Agder and take over the rule of our lands to the west whilst you remain here as the new King of Uppsala to consolidate our conquest.’

  There was a great deal of detail to resolve, but in the end Ivar’s proposal was accepted by the others present. He and Halfdan returned home with half the fleet, Guthrum went back to Denmark, and Bjorn was enthroned as King of Uppsala. Sigurd elected to remain with him to help him conquer the rest of Sweden. Ragnar was stretchered aboard his drekar and taken back to Agder. He was still delirious and feverish but the sea air seemed to do him good. Gradually he improved, but he remained very weak and he could scarcely move his right arm. Even if Ragnar eventually made a good recovery, it seemed as if his days as a Viking warrior were over.

  -℣-

  ‘What is it, father?’

  Edmund’s daughter, Osgearn, was only nine but she could tell that her father was upset by whatever news the messenger had brought.

  Edmund had married Burwena, the younger sister of Rædwulf of Cumbria, in 848. It wasn’t the love match that it would have been had he married Joscelin of Arras, but they were happy enough together. Their first child, a girl, had been born in 849 and she had been followed by another girl in 850, however the baby had died shortly after it was born. Burwena had been distraught and for a time refused to have another baby.

  She had eventually relented and their son Ricsige had been born early in 852. It had been a difficult birth and, although she had agreed to try for another child, it would be a long time before they had one.

  Edmund didn’t reply to Osgearn’s question but he showed the letter to Burwena, who put her hand to her mouth and went white.

  ‘Why? Why would he do this?’

  ‘Because Æthelred is ill and he seized the opportunity presented to him, I presume.’

  Æthelred had been formally crowned in 854 when his father had eventually died, but he’d been the de facto king for some time before that. Now he was very ill and it was said that he’d lost his wits. The letter clarified the situation, but it wasn’t good news as far as Edmund was concerned.

  Burwena handed the letter back to her husband and Edmund read through it once more. It had come from the archbishop, Wulfhere, who had succeeded Wigmund in 854.

  To the noble Edmund, Ealdorman of Islandshire, greetings,

  As you will be aware, King Æthelred has been unwell since his horse threw him whilst he was out hunting three months ago. At first he could remember nothing but slowly his memory is returning, thanks be to God. However, it is the opinion of those members of the Witan who have been consulted so far that the government of Northumbria cannot continue for much longer without a strong hand at the helm.

  We have invited the Ætheling Rædwulf to take the throne as he is nearest in blood to the present king. I regret that there wasn’t time to call a full meeting of the Witan, but we hope that you will support the action that we have taken. Æthelred will be moved to the monastery at Whitby where he can be looked after. In due course he may well decide to become a monk there, but time will tell.

  ‘Rædwulf is no more an ætheling than I am,’ Edmund said angrily. ‘We can both trace our descent back to Ida, the first King of Bernicia, but only through the female line. I’m sorry, Burwena, but your brother is a usurper.’

  ‘I agree, but perhaps we should continue this discussion in private.’

  She gave a meaningful glance towards Osgearn, who was looking tearful, and six-year-old Ricsige, who just looked bewildered.

  ‘What does this mean, father? Is Uncle Rædwulf now the king?’ Osgearn asked.

  Edmund sighed. ‘It would seem so. But don’t worry about it. It won’t change anything up here. Thankfully we are remote from the court at Eoforwīc.’

  However, that was all about to change. Rædwulf had been Æthelred’s hereræswa, the most powerful position in the kingdom after the king and the archbishop, and that had given him the status and reputation to challenge for the throne. Now he had written to Edmund summoning him to Eoforwīc and offering him the post of hereræswa. It was a logical decision. Edmund had some experience of fighting Vikings in Frankia and, as admiral, he’d had considerable success in reducing the number of raids on the east coast to a handful each year.

  ‘What will you do?’ his wife asked when the invitation arrived.

  ‘I don’t really have a lot of choice. We’ll set sail for Eoforwīc tomorrow.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Yes, as hereræswa my place is at your brother’s side. That means living at Eoforwīc and travelling around the kingdom with the court. I don’t intend to live the life of a bachelor so I’d like you to come with me, if you will, and the experience will be good for the children.’

  ‘Though I disagree with his usurpation of the throne, it would be good to see my brother again. Of course we’ll come with you.’

  -℣-

  Ragnar hobbled into his hall at Arendal leaning on a staff. He had made a good recovery but his right arm was crippled and he was still very weak. Every day he set off with determination to walk further than he had managed the day before but he was always exhausted by the time he returned.

  It galled him that he was so feeble; made worse by the knowledge that Ivar and Halfdan were away raiding Frankia again. This time they avoided the area of the Seine, which was now well defended, and headed westwards to the peninsula called Brittany, where the Britons who had fled from the Anglo-Saxon advance into their homeland centuries before, had settled.

  As soon as Ivar had sailed Ragnar had seized back the governance of Agder, Vestfold and Alfheim. He’d made those jarls who’d not sailed with his sons reaffirm their oaths to him as
their king. He’d no intention of allowing Ivar to usurp his throne, even if it meant confrontation when he returned.

  He had sent messengers to Bjorn to discover what progress he was making in Uppsala. He was pleased to hear that he had not only pacified the rest of the kingdom, but he was now engaged in a war to subdue the Geats to the south.

  He wasn’t worried about Bjorn, he had always been loyal, but Ivar was a different matter. He was ambitious and Ragnar had a feeling that his eldest son had secretly hoped that his father would die of his wound. He might not be able to wield a sword in his right hand anymore, but he could hold a shield with it.

  Not only was he walking as far as he could each day to build up his strength again, but he was training to fight left handed. His training partner met him in a remote spot on his walk where they had hidden two swords and shields. The young man, whose name was Agði, was another he trusted completely as he was another of Olaf’s sons.

  Ragnar knew that he would never be as proficient with his left arm as he was with his right, even if he fully regained his strength, but he believed that he would be able to hold his own in a fight against most warriors in due course.

  When Ivar and Halfdan returned that September they were greeted by the sight of their father standing tall and proud on the jetty waiting to welcome them home. Ragnar looked just as he had before the Battle of Uppsala apart from two things. His hair and his beard were no longer streaked in white, he was totally grey and, secondly, he wore his sword on his right hip.

  ‘Greetings, father,’ Ivar called as the ship’s boys jumped ashore to secure the mooring lines. ‘It’s good to see you looking so well.’

  ‘Thank you Ivar. I trust you came back laden with spoils? Next year it will be my turn to go.’

  ‘Go? Go where? Raiding Frankia?’

  ‘No, now that Uppsala has been dealt with, I am free to settle an old score with Edmund of Bebbanburg, the man responsible for your brother Fridlief’s death.’

  Both Ivar and Halfdan regarded their father sombrely. They worked well together and had got used to making their own decisions. Now that Ragnar had reasserted his authority they would be relegated to doing as they were told, something neither relished. Besides, from what he had just said, their father intended to go raiding next year whilst they stayed behind with the old men and the women. It was not to be endured.

  Chapter Twenty – The Fall of Eoforwīc

  Summer 858

  Edmund had brought back four skeid from Frankia - the correct name for drekars which didn’t display a pagan dragon figurehead – two of them were the original ships built by Thorkel and Ragnar at Bebbanburg decades before and he had kept one of those captured from the Swedes near Paris. The fourth had been built before he left and was the largest of all with space for seventy two oarsmen.

  In addition he had built two smaller snekkjur back in Northumbria. The latter had twenty oars a side and needed a crew of fifty. Two more skeid were under construction and he hoped to have them in service by the start of the following spring.

  To house them in safety he had constructed a fortified harbour at the mouth of the River Wansbeck some forty odd miles south of Bebbanburg. He had also installed a chain boom across the entrance and towers each side to defend it.

  The five hundred warriors, sailors and ships’ boys needed to crew his fleet lived in a hall near the harbour with another twenty warriors too old to do anything other than man the harbour defences. With the families of those who were married, tavern keepers, whores, merchants and artisans, shipwrights and labourers, the settlement’s population topped seven hundred.

  The whole enterprise cost a great deal of money to maintain but the king thought it was worth it if it kept the Vikings away. Unfortunately, not all his nobles, bishops and abbots, on whom the greater part of taxation burden fell, were of the same mind. Even with the support of the royal treasury Edmund still had to find a proportion of the cost.

  From the new port his longships patrolled the whole of the east coast. Usually three would head north and the rest south and spend two or three days at sea at a time. The patrols weren’t infallible at deterring raiders but, after they had caught and defeated two snekkjur, hanging those of the crew who weren’t killed in the fight, word soon got around. After that other Danish raiders – and along the east coast they were mainly Danes rather than Norse - chose the more vulnerable coastlines of Pictland, East Anglia and Kent to raid.

  His new position as hereræswa took Edmund away from the sea and so he appointed Cynefrith as commander of the fleet with a man called Uxfrea as his deputy. One would command the northern patrol and the other the ships that covered the southern coast of the kingdom.

  Uxfrea wasn’t a universally popular choice. He was the son of a poor fisherman but he had proved to be a skilled sailor becoming in turn, helmsman, captain of a skied and now the fleet’s deputy commander.

  Life was quiet for the first four months of Rædwulf’s reign. The only ripple on an otherwise calm sea was the rapid recovery of Æthelred at Whitby. Now that he had recovered his memory, he was apparently getting increasingly agitated by the usurpation of his throne, as he saw it, by his distant cousin.

  ‘I’m not quite sure what to do about him,’ Rædwulf confessed to Edmund one evening during an all too rare visit to his former shire of Cumbria where his son was now the ealdorman. ‘Many of the nobles and churchmen who were keen enough to support me during Æthelred’s illness now seem to favour his return to power. I fear my days are numbered unless I can somehow get rid of him. The increased taxation to fund your fleet hasn’t helped, of course.’

  ‘You don’t mean...’ Edmund’s words trailed off.

  He didn’t want to mention the possibility of assassination and, indeed, he was totally opposed to it. He liked his brother-in-law, but it was Æthelred who had brought him back from exile and had re-instated him as an ealdorman, despite his father’s opposition. Obviously Burwena sided with her brother and so Edmund’s loyalty was divided between the two rivals. Whatever happened, he wanted Æthelred treated with respect.

  ‘No, if I killed him it would be like prodding a wasp’s nest with a stick. Others would seize the opportunity to accuse me, if only to make a bid for the throne themselves.’

  Edmund had a feeling that he was referring to two brothers who were also distant cousins of Æthelred: Ælle and Osbehrt.

  ‘The alternative is to exile him, I suppose,’ Edmund suggested.

  ‘What? And give him the opportunity to raise an army abroad? I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

  ‘The only other option would be to keep him closely confined but treated well so as not to give anyone an excuse to raise trouble over his treatment. He could easily escape from where he is at the moment.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you are right, Edmund. Thank you.’

  However, all thoughts about the troublesome Æthelred were forgotten when, shortly after their return to Eoforwīc, news reached Rædwulf that three of Edmund’s longships had encountered a Viking fleet off Bebbanburg. As there were sixteen longships, Uxfrea had taken the sensible decision to return to their base in the estuary of the Wansbeck and leave the monastery on Lindisfarne to its fate.

  In the face of a Viking army of around a thousand there wasn’t much the garrison of Bebbanburg could do except alert the surrounding shires and call up the fyrd. By the time that sufficient numbers had assembled the Vikings had long since departed, leaving the burning and pillaged monastery behind them.

  -℣-

  ‘What will you do now father?’ Ivar asked as Lindisfarne faded into the distance.

  Ragnar had intended to leave Ivar behind with Halfdan and Sigurd, but over the past winter he had become suspicious of his eldest son’s ambitions. In the end he had decided to take him with him; better to keep him close than to allow him to make himself king in his father’s absence. Halfdan would look after Agder and Vestfold and Sigurd Alfheim. That way neither would become too powerful.

&n
bsp; They had sacked the monastery once more, but Ragnar still had no idea how to capture Bebbanburg. He stared at it malevolently as they sailed past it and wondered if Edmund was hiding behind its walls.

  ‘I think we’ll see if the Norns still look kindly on us and attack the city they call Eoforwīc,’ he said in reply to his son’s question.

  ‘Do you think that’s a good idea, father? It’ll be heavily defended,’ Ivar said doubtfully.

  ‘Perhaps, but there is every chance that, by the time we get there, their king will have sent his warriors – or at least some of them – north in response to our attack on Lindisfarne.’

  Eoforwīc lay surrounded by marshland on the River Ouse. Ragnar’s small fleet lay just over the horizon until after sunset and then, in the pale moonlight, his eighteen ships followed his drekar into the Humber estuary. An hour later they reached the confluence of the Ouse and the Humber and turned north. The area to the south of the old walled city was marshland and so their passage was unlikely to be detected until dawn. By then they had reached the small vill of Acastre built on the site of an old Roman fort.

  There was a small jetty but it was only big enough to allow two longships to moor at a time. The river was quite wide at this point and so the rest of the Viking fleet moored two abreast in the middle of the waterway. Whilst a few ships patrolled upstream to prevent any passing boats from reporting their presence, Ragnar’s crew landed and sacked the place, not that there was much plunder to be had. Captives for sale later as thralls would have been an encumbrance and so the unfortunate inhabitants were killed, even the small children, and their bodies were thrown down the well.

  As darkness crept over the land once more the Viking fleet set off again. This time there was no moonlight to guide them. The sky was overcast and a light rain had been falling since mid-afternoon. As the surrounding land was flat and the swamp merged into the water in the gloom, some care was needed if their ships were not to run aground near the banks. Consequently Ragnar kept their progress down to a few miles an hour.